The Invite is a decentralized social media platform and documentary film podcast.

It uses the cookout framework to cultivate solidarity and empower historically disempowered artists and communities.

THE PLATFORM

The Invite is a platform and podcast for storytellers and community organizers seeking a seat at the cookout table.

The first phase of research was surveying and interviewing artists and scholars on how they are navigating social media, to test demand for an alternative platform. That research was conducted at Harvard and culminated in a convening, video podcast interview series, and report you can read and watch here. At Harvard, I met Rudy Fraser, founder of Blacksky Algorithms, who was launching a project to build decentralized communities on the ATProtocol.

The beta version of The Invite app will launch on Bluesky’s decentralized ATProtocol in summer 2026 coinciding with the release of the first episode of The Invite series. Decentralized technology allows communities to control data, moderation, governance, and algorithms where one username and login offers access to an ecosystem of apps for micro-blogging, photo, video, long-form blogging, livestreaming, and more.

The goal of the ambitious Invite project is develop platforms for solidarity over division, cultivating community-based strategies for artists, community organizers, and scholars to work together to develop our own AI through ancestral intelligence. I hypothesize ancestral intelligences can guide this development process. As my comic and academic book demonstrate, the cookout, as an ancestral Black American practice, is a productive framework for guiding how to invite (develop), cook (produce), serve (distribute), and host (exhibit) our stories and data. My team will rely on intergenerational strategies for cultivating knowledge, from programming based on the Earth’s cycles (e.g. a video podcast may be released once a season or every new moon) to inviting Invite app members to share their family stories and intergenerational healing practices.

THE DOCUMENTARY FILM & PODCAST

Anchoring the platform with be an annual documentary film and regular series of podcasts highlighting the storytellers and groups that are accepting The Invite.

Each premiere installment of The Invite documentary will center on a theme, with the first, “FREEDOM,” premiering Juneteenth 2026 starring Shea Couleé, Jamila Woods, Lisa Beasley, Nicole Rawls, Morgan Johnson, and Jade T. Perry.

Throughout the year, different groups will be showcased on The Invite podcast series with interviews and showcases of films and campaigns from storytellers and community organizations.

Photo credit: Stephanie Jensen.

CREATIVE TEAM

MAKIAH GREEN (executive producer, left)is an Emmy Award winning producer, writer and entrepreneur. She is the Founder of Get Free Media, a disruptive production company and collective studio that provides creators of color with culturally specific development support. As the former Senior Vice President of LizzoBangers, Makiah developed and executive produced Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls for Amazon Studios, which won 3 Emmys and took home a Producers Guild Award and Critics Choice Award for Best Competition Series. Previously, Makiah worked as a Manager of Original Series at Netflix, where she oversaw a number of critically acclaimed shows including MO, Dead to Me, Gente-fied and Dear White People. Before joining the Netflix team, she rose through the ranks at MACRO, where she developed films including Judas and the Black Messiah, Sorry to Bother You and Really Love.

SAM BAILEY (director, middle) is an Emmy-nominated writer and director. Bailey is the director of Marvel's upcoming series for Disney + Ironheart, the co-creator of the acclaimed Emmy-nominated webseries Brown Girls, and the creator of the Gotham-nominated webseries You’re So Talented, which premiered at Tribeca. Bailey served as a producer and as a director on the final season of Netflix’s Dear White People as well as a director on the previous season of the show. Bailey directed the Powderkeg digital series East of La Brea (SXSW Selectee, Urban World Film Festival Winner), and episodes of television including Grown-ish, Loosely Exactly Nicole, and The Chi. Bailey received praise for her examination of gender and patriarchy in her short film Masculine / Masculine which premiered on Vice. Bailey's work has been featured in many publications and she was included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2018, The Root’s 100 Most Influential African Americans of 2018, and received Shadow and Act’s Rising Award in 2019.

SARAH MINNIE (producer, right) is the founder of Minnie Productions and an Emmy nominated producer and award-winning director of documentaries, commercials, fashion films, music videos, web series, pilots, short films, features and more. Her work has been published in VOGUE, The Chicago Tribune, Women & Hollywood. Sarah served as OTV’s Head of Artist Development and Production.